rural-dwellers anywhere else in the world in that they depend on private vehicles that
are inefficient but are, nevertheless, used to get around town and to work. It would
help to have them reside on their farms in order to reduce the amount of work-related
travel time associated with getting to work in the farmlands. Household heads were
not accustomed to taking public transport, however, although some of their household occupants (mainly wives) did use it when necessary.
Stemming from the follow-up interviews, it was evident that produce yields did
not necessarily reflect hectarage or income. This indicates that there is varied
intensity of land use in the study area, which can be proxied using mass over area
data (see Chap. 5). It was also discovered during the course of the fieldwork that
CoopeAgri keeps tracks of yields produced in the corridor (in a database) and this
could be deployed somehow to supplement information on local biocapacity based
on what is locally produced for the region. This would help to inform the biocapacity
portion of the accounts that is currently excluded (and not addressed) by the
Footprint Calculator. Another highlight here is the necessity to improve the livelihoods of these local producers (e.g., through efforts towards poverty alleviation) and
improve soil health and fertility as well as produce quality (e.g. support organic
production).
7.4.1 Applying the Footprint Calculator
It is necessary to test the Footprint Calculator in developing regions in order to
overcome any existing shortcomings. The chief concern in altering the Footprint
Calculator is that the actual survey cannot be changed in order for it to maintain its
comparability across nations and years (in the case of repeated studies) – a criticism
also cf. Jóhannesson et al. (2020). It should be noted, however, that changes have
already been made to the National Footprint Accounts since their inception based on
published criticisms and suggestions for improvement – using equivalent factors is
an example of this. For the accounts, this means that the edition needs to be specified
in the published literature relaying findings that are specific to an annual edition (the
2019 Edition was deployed in the current study). Arguably, however, it is not
enough to ‘calibrate’ using the National Footprint Accounts if the survey questions
are inappropriate, biased, or blind in some regard that impacts the results. A
conundrum, therefore, exists in that it is necessary to ‘acculturate’ the Footprint
Calculator survey (and change it in order for it to be improved) but, on the other
hand, this could restrict and nullify cross-temporal and/or -spatial comparisons.
What can be done to overcome this perhaps is to encourage people to complete
the Footprint Calculator with every new edition of the National Footprint
Accounts as a way to gauge cross-temporal (behaviour) change.
In the current application of the case study conducted in the corridor, for instance,
not all questions were relevant (and they were assumed – and a consistent default
used, as evident in Appendix 1.1 – and not asked in order to reduce the survey time).
These included questions pertaining to carpooling (when no car-share scheme was
7.4 Recommendations
101
are inefficient but are, nevertheless, used to get around town and to work. It would
help to have them reside on their farms in order to reduce the amount of work-related
travel time associated with getting to work in the farmlands. Household heads were
not accustomed to taking public transport, however, although some of their household occupants (mainly wives) did use it when necessary.
Stemming from the follow-up interviews, it was evident that produce yields did
not necessarily reflect hectarage or income. This indicates that there is varied
intensity of land use in the study area, which can be proxied using mass over area
data (see Chap. 5). It was also discovered during the course of the fieldwork that
CoopeAgri keeps tracks of yields produced in the corridor (in a database) and this
could be deployed somehow to supplement information on local biocapacity based
on what is locally produced for the region. This would help to inform the biocapacity
portion of the accounts that is currently excluded (and not addressed) by the
Footprint Calculator. Another highlight here is the necessity to improve the livelihoods of these local producers (e.g., through efforts towards poverty alleviation) and
improve soil health and fertility as well as produce quality (e.g. support organic
production).
7.4.1 Applying the Footprint Calculator
It is necessary to test the Footprint Calculator in developing regions in order to
overcome any existing shortcomings. The chief concern in altering the Footprint
Calculator is that the actual survey cannot be changed in order for it to maintain its
comparability across nations and years (in the case of repeated studies) – a criticism
also cf. Jóhannesson et al. (2020). It should be noted, however, that changes have
already been made to the National Footprint Accounts since their inception based on
published criticisms and suggestions for improvement – using equivalent factors is
an example of this. For the accounts, this means that the edition needs to be specified
in the published literature relaying findings that are specific to an annual edition (the
2019 Edition was deployed in the current study). Arguably, however, it is not
enough to ‘calibrate’ using the National Footprint Accounts if the survey questions
are inappropriate, biased, or blind in some regard that impacts the results. A
conundrum, therefore, exists in that it is necessary to ‘acculturate’ the Footprint
Calculator survey (and change it in order for it to be improved) but, on the other
hand, this could restrict and nullify cross-temporal and/or -spatial comparisons.
What can be done to overcome this perhaps is to encourage people to complete
the Footprint Calculator with every new edition of the National Footprint
Accounts as a way to gauge cross-temporal (behaviour) change.
In the current application of the case study conducted in the corridor, for instance,
not all questions were relevant (and they were assumed – and a consistent default
used, as evident in Appendix 1.1 – and not asked in order to reduce the survey time).
These included questions pertaining to carpooling (when no car-share scheme was
7.4 Recommendations
101